


Abide With Me

by Fasnacht



Category: The Phantom Stallion
Genre: F/M, Feminist Themes, Fluff and Angst, Future Fic, Jungian Dream Interpertation, Large Families, Major Character Injury, Recovery, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-06 15:30:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 16,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1862994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fasnacht/pseuds/Fasnacht
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jake Ely wakes up to discover that every dream he had at the age of seven is now a reality. Like his grandfather, he works for the FBI in Boston, and has a really cool tattoo. The only fly in the ointment is that the last thing Jake knew, he was 19, working on the ranch, and struggling to keep his best friend from killing herself in some mission to save the wild horses. </p><p>This is his journey within himself to find his way back to his imperfect reality. This was one of the first three shots I published on FFN.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first Phantom Stallion fic on ao3 that I can find. Sadly, this is not a good introduction to the fandom. I promise that some of the other stories I’m transferring over might better suited to that task. 
> 
> This was the first fanfiction I marked as finished. I would write it differently today, but I wanted to preserve it here, if only to demonstrate growth. 
> 
> Warning: I struggled in formatting this.

Jake Ely woke with a start, his head and stomach at war. Desperate for air, he turned to the side of the couch and tripped as he stood. His shin hit the coffee table and he jumped to left. "Brat!" he muttered. She was always throwing her stuff around. Without opening his eyes, he drew several conclusions. His head was pounding, his body ached, and he was cold. So, he'd fallen asleep on the couch at River Bend. It shouldn't matter. He should have a clear path. He did not have any such thing as he fumbled towards the bathroom so as to worship the porcelain gods. Wait. Where was the door? He cracked his bleary eyes open, and the light that flooded his gaze made his head throb with quadruple the intensity. He was going to kill Quinn, he decided. Why would Quinn spike his soda? He thought the Cherry Coke had tasted funny.

Wait. This wasn't even River Bend. Since when did River Bend have apple green walls and girl toys thrown around? He spun, realizing he'd tripped over a Barbie car, just like Sam's when they were little. Shit, he thought. Shit, shit, shit. He'd fallen asleep in someone else's house. Was Darrell's ten year old cousin visiting? How the hell had he ended up with a spiked soda around a little kid? His mind was utterly blank. How the hell had he ended up at Darrell's, even though this place didn't look a thing like it? It was too modern, too fancy. He needed to get out of here, fast. Jake tripped as he caught sight of himself in a mirror.

He was old. His head was shaved and there was day old stubble around his mouth and chin. He was glad to see that age hadn't given him cause to get fat, something his brothers occasionally teased him about, given his love of pie. They said that he wouldn't be able to eat like that forever, but... Wait. He wasn't old. He was 20, for God's sake, home from his second year at school. He wasn't old. And where had he gotten the tattoo he saw on his bicep? Sam hated tattoos, though the fact that Brat hated them hadn't stopped him. He just hadn't settled on a design he'd liked. Once he did, there was no telling what he might do. He wanted to get one because she thought they were gross. He lived to annoy her. 

Jake got it now. He'd fallen, or been kicked, and his brain was injured. At the very least, he was asleep. He needed to wake up. Wake up, he said to himself. If he was hurt...there was no telling what had happened to..."Wake up, Jake!" he called in his head, "Wake up!" Maybe if he stunned himself, he could get up. He threw himself on the floor with a hard thud, wincing at the noise his body made amid fancy hardwood and blend of antiques. He cringed when nothing happened other than a flash of pain. 

There was a giggle. "What're you doing?' A gap toothed girl with corkscrew reddish curls and green eyes demanded. She was wearing a blue dress, with a dinosaur on the pocket. He knew that dress, from long ago. Didn’t he? 

"Sam?" He gasped. If he was old, and she was young, maybe they were sharing a dream, or something. He could get them both out. He had to be dreaming. That was the only thing that made sense. 

The girl shook her head. "I'm Maya, Daddy!" She laughed as though they were playing a game.

This was really too much. Now, he was hallucinating that he was old and a father? Where the hell had Sam gotten the name Maya from? Why'd she pick that name? He'd never thought of names, but he knew Maya wouldn't be one he'd select. His heart began to thunder again. Why was his mind insisting that Sam was this child's mother? He said, "Huh?"

"Silly Daddy. I'm hungry. It's lunch." She said, looking at him with an indulgent grin.

"What?" He asked, repeating himself. His sense of place faded as his head pounded. There was a loud series of beeps in his ear, ones that shook him to the core.  
The girl faded into the kitchen, and called to him. Her voice sounded garbled over the buzzing in his ears, but he found himself standing next to her, in a sterile grey and white kitchen. There was a light shining in his face, and he turned from it, only to find himself staring at the fixings for a sandwich. Maya demanded a sandwich, and he figured out that he should go along with his delusion until someone pulled him out. Maybe he'd been drugged. This was not his reality.

"Maya...? He asked, once he felt himself sitting at a table. His voice was older, and it was jarring. Where was he? What did this all mean? 

"Daddy! I hate mustard!" She called, "Why is there mustard on my sandwich?"

He grinned. Even brain damaged, he couldn't get away from Sam's oddity. He needed information. The date, his mind echoed, the date. His mind was frantically searching for the date. Some far off place in his mind begged for it, even though he didn't know what made it so imperative that he know it. "Can you tell me the date?"

She nodded, and supplied it. His delusion was spot on, given his appearance. She said it was March. Vague tingles ran down his spine. He knew that it was supposed to be summer. He was 32. "Maya, where's your mother?" He could find her and they could get out of this dream.

"Mama." She said. Her voice sounded so much like his, and Jake’s mouth went dry. 

"What's her name?" He pressed, frantically. The little girl did not look afraid, only confused. He was supposed to know this. He didn’t even know who the child was. No, he knew. Somehow, some part of this little girl called out to him. 

"Mama." She stressed, "Mama," Why had her voice sounded like his in that moment? Oh, his head ached. His mouth felt as thought it had been stuffed full of cotton.  
"What do I call her?" He asked, begging, as he set the sandwich down in front of the child. The sandwich was not the best he had ever prepared, but she bit into it with joy.  
"Perdita." She replied, seeing nothing amiss with the reply, though missing what she said around her mouthful of sliced turkey.

"I'm glad I call her pretty, but what's her name?" He cried, utterly lost and frustrated.  
o-o-o-o-o-o

His question was never answered, as he found himself back in the living room of what he now realized was a small house in a row of several. How he knew that, he didn't know. He needed to find Sam. He picked up the phone, and dialed her cell number after misdialing several times, and thinking "40..." There was no 40 in her number. Why was there a sudden pressure in his arm? He shrugged it off, even as his shoulder twinged. God, what had happened last night? Ring Ring Ring Ring I'm sorry the number you have dialed... Jake slammed the phone down, missing the cradle twice. He'd call mom. Mom would help him.

After fumbling with the phone for what seemed like ages, someone answered, "Three Ponies, Helena speaking..." He inhaled, who was this? He didn't know a Helena.

"I...think I have the wrong number again." He croaked. His throat felt tight. No Sam. No Mom. What was he going to do? And there was this little girl, and she had Sam's eyes. Where was Sam? He wanted his mother. He'd give anything to hug his mother. He was so cold.

"Jake?" The voice was shocked, and echoed in his head. "Jake Ely?"

"Yes. Is...my mom...is my mom there?" He asked, not bothering to hide the thickness or the fear in his voice. Why was this person so surprised to hear from him?  
There was a shout and a scuffle. Suddenly his mom was on the line. He could have cried, and perhaps he was crying. He felt a rawness in his throat that went beyond normal tears. He didn't know what was going on, but if there was one thing he knew, he knew Max Ely loved him. And she would fix this. "Mom?"

"Jake!" She exclaimed, "I'm sorry, Jacob.” She repeated his name, “Jacob. You think I'd remember. I'm sorry."

"What're you sorry for?" He asked. "Look, Mama. I need help. I..." The story tumbled out. "The last thing I remember, I was fine at River Bend, and I fell asleep. And now, I woke up, and I'm 32. Two hours ago, I was barely 20. There's this kid. And I can't find Sam. Where's Sam, mom? What if the same thing happened to her?” Jake just knew somehow that there was more to this, and when there were pranks going on, he knew that Sam was involved with them, “I think...I think something's really wrong, Mama." At this point, he wouldn’t even be mad to know that she had helped Quinn to spike his soda. No, only Quinn would let a joke go this far. Sam knew when funny wasn't funny anymore. 

Max exhaled, "If you called after all these years to pull some prank." Anger and hurt turned her voice into something bitter. 

"Mom, we talked this morning.” Jake tried to contextualize his day, “You made french toast, and you burned the last slice, and Quinn said that he'd eat it anyway." He paused, "Mom..."

"Jake. Listen.” Mom’s tone was strident, “You are going to go next door and get Mrs. Wietzman. Then you're going to Mass General. Tell them what you told me, and the nice people will help you."

"Mom. I'm not crazy." He thought about banging his head against the coffee table on as he realized for a second that it felt like his head was immobilized. He felt like vomiting, "Wait. I'm in Boston?"

"Where else have you been living for the past eight years?” Mom was sarcastic, but explained anyhow. “You're an FBI agent, Jacob." She paused, "Listen, maybe you should call Perdita at work."

"Who's Perdita?" Jake asked. The little girl was gone, but he knew that she had said the same word. Perdita, it seemed, was a person, and one he was supposed to know. 

"You don't remember your own wife?" She scoffed, continuing sotto voice, "Not that we were invited to the wedding..."

"Mom? That's not funny." He wasn't married, he wasn't 32, and he wasn't married. He'd never get married without his family. Where was Sam? He continued, "Did Sam put you up to this? I swear, if I find out she's behind this, she’ll..."

"Sam?" Mom blurted, continuing as though she were baffled, "Sam, Wyatt’s daughter, Sam?"

"Mom." He moaned. Who else would he mean? 

"She's... " Mom gave a bitter laugh, "God, you've not said her name in years, not that you ever call. Why are you asking about her?"

This was too much for the young man. He was stuck in some freaky place where he was old, married to some chick he didn't know, a father, cold, in pain, tired, and he couldn't find Sam. To add to it, his mother hated him. She sound wary and bitter. His own mother was a stranger to him as he asked."What?"

"I saw her last week at church." Mom offered, her voice a soft consolation in the face of being in a world he did not understand. "She was in for a visit."

"Mom, something's wrong." Jake vowed, "There's never been a week that you've missed seeing her. Ever. You need to find her. Call her, and tell her to come home, and we can..." He tone held a note of desperation.

"Jake. How old...are...do you think...are you?" She stammered. Jake looked around the room, but anything beyond the phone seemed so far away, almost like he could not touch it. 

"This morning, I was 20." He stated. The phone slipped from his grip quickly. 

"God, Jake..." His mother's voice faded away as a brunette appeared in front of him. Had she spoken, or had his mother? She was thin, and tall. She wore heels. She nodded in greeting as though there was nothing amiss between them, whoever she was.

"Who are you?" He demanded. Why was he so cold? It was so cold. Cold swirled around him. There was a buzzing in his ears. It echoed, and he nearly moaned.

She replied, "Funny.” The bags she set down on the counter echoed in his ears, “I need help with the groceries."

"Who are you?" He nearly screamed. His head was spinning. There was a weight on top of him, and he almost could not breathe. His lungs hurt as a bright light flooded his eyes, blocking everything around him. 

"Perdita Ganager Ely." She quipped, even as the brightness of the light faded back to normal.

"I don't know you. I don't know who I am. I don't know..." She moved around the kitchen, easily, and Jake was horrified by the whiteness of the space. He began, "Did you know there's a kid here?"

She laughed, "Yes, as a matter of fact, I did know that.” She opened a drawer quickly, “Why are you trying to get out of that party Jacob?"

"My name is Jake." No one except his Grandfather called him Jacob. Jacob wasn't him. Jacob was... Well, he was Jake.

"You didn't want to be called that..." She said cryptically as she turned to him, "Listen, sweetie. Go take a shower. Call Harper. Go for a run. Do something. But be at Tartarus Hotel at seven if I don't see you. I've got to get my hair done."

"But...the kid, Maya?" He asked, wondering if he was supposed to take her. 

"She has a nanny, Jacob." His wife, wife, he gagged, smiled, "Go on. I refuse to be late."

"We're friends, right?" He asked, "I mean, you know me, right?" He was desperate to find some shred of his authentic self, somehow. 

"Since you came to a track meet at BU. " She nodded crisply, "You're an FBI special agent. You like to read."

He shook his head wildly. He liked to read, and he wanted to be a cop, but something in his heart was tearing. His childhood dream of being an FBI agent was nothing when weighed against the land he loved. "I'm a rancher. That's all I ever wanted...Witch..." Something had happened to Witch. Where was she? "Witch..." he said, "My horse...Witch..." His plea for her reverberated in the soulless kitchen.

"We don't have horses." The strange woman moved about a kitchen filled with foods he'd never eaten. His mouth was suddenly completely dry. She continued, "You grew up on a ranch, though. Hmm." Her phone rang, it was so loud. Why was it so loud? "Sam..." he muttered, "Sam..." as if the words were coming from outside of him.

"We don't know a Sam, Jacob." She waved her hand and began to speak in another language. Reality faded for a tenth of second, leaving him unawares. It was only as the light grew around him that he realized Perdita spoke French. 

o-o-o-o-o-o

Jake was at a party. He understood intrinsically that he had gotten there, though he did not grasp the means through which he had done so. The stuffy ballroom was filled with people, milling about and chatting. Some seemed to know him, but he knew he did not know a soul. He heard a beeping again, that beeping, horrible and grating. Where was it coming from? He downed some champagne, but it tasted terribly. He coughed it up and felt a wetness on his chest that didn't show on the tuxedo he wore. Jake slipped away from Perdita as soon as he could. She had been keeping an eye on him as she mingled. 

Jake slipped out a side door, and found himself in a seemingly empty hallway. Walking down a hallway away from the party, toward a large door, he saw her. "Sam!" She had appeared from almost nowhere.

"Jake Ely?" Sam stopped short as he ran to meet her. She looked older, but he'd know her anywhere. He suddenly recalled that this was a journalism benefit one that supported a Media Ethics group, though how his mind supplied that information he didn't know. She was a journalist. Her dreams had come true.

"Sam..." He threw his arms around her. His rapid heartbeat, one that had been flying since he woke up, slowed when she was skin to skin with him. She pulled away awkwardly. God, she was beautiful. She was wearing a shimmery pink dress. Her green eyes were wide, as he pulled her close again. If he could just get her closer, he'd be warm. His skin was so clammy, but he finally felt safe. He only realized how unsafe he felt in retrospect. 

"What are you doing?" She asked, as she sat down against the cool wall. No one else was around, and he grinned as she pulled back her hem to sit and he saw her favorite work boots on her slim feet. They went with the dress, he thought. 

"Hugging my friend." He wished he was wearing boots, just so he could shuffle them as he plopped down next to her. What kind of guy was he, that he wore shiny shoes that he couldn't even work in? There was the bright light again, he thought, even as his gaze narrowed against it.

"We're friends?" She scoffed, adding softly, "Jake, we haven't spoken in ten years."

"What?" His heart fluttered, and there was some loud noise, some beeping in his head again. "No..." The word was drawn out. It came from outside of him, but he knew he had spoken. “No...” 

She nodded, "Uh, yeah." Sam looked befuddled, but willing to talk. 

After another minute of talking, he had facts running through his brain. It seemed he'd gone to college, up until he'd come to BU his first semester of his third year for a track meet. Sam finished, "And...you never looked back. You came back, but you left right after. Grad school, Perdita, the FBI. You haven't been home in six years."  
"Sam? That's not right..." He just knew that that wasn't him. He would never just go, just leave. He would not do that to his family.  
"I'm sorry, I have to go." Sam began to stand. He felt cold. He really wanted his mother. She'd explain how this happened. This wasn't right. Why did his head hurt so badly? Why was he so cold?

"No, Sam." His voice felt choked, funny, "Don't go..."

"Jake. You're happy. You have a little girl, and a nice life. I've got my writing, and I'm really doing things." Sam began. "I have somebody, and I'm happy. I know we're not close, but are you sick?"

He cut her off, "No! No!" This wasn't how it was supposed to be. "One day, we were fine, and the next thing I know, I wake up and I'm old, and everyone thinks I'm crazy." He swore as he brain echoed and shook with noise, "Fuck, what is that beeping?"

She frowned, "I don't hear anything..."

"Why?" He begged, "Why?" None of this reality meant anything. He hadn't cared about working for the FBI since he was twelve and realized that he would much rather work the ranch and join Ballard's office with the county. He no longer had grandiose dreams of glittery parties and being important, he just wanted to do something important. Serving his community and his family was important. How had it turned out that he only served himself? 

She seemed to look into his soul, understanding his confusion, as she began softly voice warbling and slightly distorted at times, "I spent so many years trying to get you to love me. I won't beg for your love anymore. I won't beg for you to come back, come back to me. I won't beg you to say I love you. I spent so many years throwing myself at you, begging to love me, just me, just love me, and only me, and I wasn't enough. I won't beg for your love, Jake. You need to love yourself, and find joy where you are."

"You never had to!" He declared, trying to make her see that she was his friend. She was his friend, she always had been. She had supported him in going to college, taken care of his horse while he was gone. The fact that he could trust Sam with Witch meant so much. 

Sam smiled softly, and reached for his hand, but she faded away as the beeping and the bright lights exploded in his brain. There was a low hum beyond it, that he almost wished he could reach. 

o-o-o-o-o-o

The room spun, and he found himself sitting in the kitchen with the little girl. Gone were the party clothes. He was wearing his favorite blue shirt. "Maya?" He asked.  
She looked up from coloring, "Daddy? Can we take a nap?"

So he found himself back on the couch with her on the other end. "I'll start." She said, with confidence.

"Start what?" He asked, even as he felt himself drifting away. He could not hold on, and for the first time, he found himself wanting to know more. She was a bright child, and she deserved more. He wanted more than this for himself, and for her. 

"The words!" She giggled, starting, to sing,"Come not in terrors, as the King of kings," He joined her in the next line, his voice felt weak, tired. Why was she singing in the middle of the song? He didn't care, as her tiny voice began to sound like his mother's as she moved through the verse. Every night he could recall as a child, his mother tuck them in, praying the words in her cheery voice. He missed his mother. He could still hear her, as she sang, "But kind and good, with healing in Thy wings; Tears for all woes, a heart for every plea."

Wait, he could really hear her, as the little girl, Maya, faded away. Maya faded away. He could really hear his voice, croaking, "Mom?" The prayer stopped as the beeping and light exploded anew as he cracked his eyes open. He hit reality hard, only to find himself plunging into the confines of an injured body. He was flat on his back in a hospital room. He cracked an eye, “Mom!” Suddenly, there was a light shinning in his eyes. It was oddly comforting.

He was dying. He could feel it, even as a new voice above him asked, "Mr. Ely? Mr. Ely? Can you squeeze my hand?" He was dying, but at least he was going with the last thing he'd hear being his mother's words of comfort. He hurt so badly. Wasn't death supposed to be painless?

The voice was insistent, "Mr. Ely, squeeze my hand as hard as you can..." He did, and he fell back into the bliss of nothingness. After what felt like seconds, he woke, and his voice was stronger, "Mom?"

He wasn’t in the apartment with apple green walls. He cracked an eye to see the speckled ceiling above her. His mother shifted, and he turned his head slightly to see her. She was there. She hadn't left him. Oh God, he was crying. "Mom?"

"Shush, baby." She touched his arm, right below an injured shoulder, he saw, and said, "You're okay." She spoke slowly, "You were working on the roof of the barn with your brothers." She pressed her lips to his his forehead at his look of confusion, "You slipped, and fell through. The old thing was more damaged by the storm than we thought. I'm so sorry. You're going to be laid up for a few weeks, they say. I'm so sorry, baby."

"Mom." He said, "Please don't leave me. Please. I was so scared. I couldn't find you. I called and called and..." He broke off with a gasp as the heart rate monitor began to beep faster. "Where's Sam?"

He swallowed. His mother raised the head of the bed slightly, and replied, "The nurses tried to kick her out."

His face drained, "Did they?" He knew that he had dreamed her, but he swore he had felt her there some of the time, had felt her departure from him. 

There was a snort from the other side of the bed, "Like hell."

He turned his head to see Sam, worn and weary, rings under her eyes that matched his mother's. She was 17, and just as he had last seen her. He could see the dream her, though, in the angles of her face, and was awed that he'd seen the fulfillment of her potential even as his whatever it was had highlighted his failures. He would think later. Now, he just...just wanted to be back in his reality. "Hey..." He muttered.

"You scared us all." She stated. The words were simple fact, and Jake took comfort in the certainty of her words. She knew him, and he knew her. 

"Sorry." He slurred.

"No you're not. You have morphine." She grinned tiredly, flicking a gaze towards the machine that dispensed the medication and back at Sam.

He smiled. His eyes didn't leave Sam’s face as his mother spoke far too brightly, "Well, I need coffee!"

Sam's gaze shifted, as he asked, "How long was I...out?" He could not see windows or anything, but his mind could not decide if he had been out for seconds or for decades.  
"You should..." Sam frowned, leaning forward to shift and untuck her feet, "sleep." She watched as his mother left the room.

"Come on." He said, knowing that she would not be able to turn down his request for information, not when she thrived on gathering information herself. 

"Fine. Not long. You were talking an awful lot, though." She picked some lint off his blanket.

"Oh?" What had he said? Learning what he had said seemed vital, though he would not ask or tell her why. 

Sam looked up sharply, and then her eyes softened. The hospital bed separating them felt wide, and Jake felt helpless as she evaded. "You didn't say much..."

"Sam?" He thought about telling her everything, but couldn't find the words. Instead, he asked, "What would you do, if I tried to move to Boston and join the FBI?"

She grinned, and said, "Buy a CharlieCard."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 2....

Solitude surrounded him. Mom and Sam had gone, being that it was getting really late. Neither had wanted to go, but he'd frowned at them and as good as forced them out of the room. Ten minutes later, he regretted it. Jake was in a single room, by virtue of the fact that the other bed in the regional hospital's room wasn't being used. He had nothing but his thoughts to occupy him.  
His left arm was immobilized in a sling. Thank God it wasn't his dominant side that had been injured. His right was strapped to an arm board, with an IV needle sticking out under a little plastic dome and acres of tape. It hurt to wiggle his fingers on either hand. Still, keeping an uninjured arm taped down was crazy. He had to get it loose. After a moment of pain, and thinking about it, he was stumped. What was he supposed to do?

Jake tried to move his left hand closer to his right, but that hurt so bad he saw stars. Moving his hands in the other direction wasn't much better. The IV pulled, and his skin around it burned for a second. He sighed. Theoretically, he knew he could pull the IV, but he really didn't want to do that. He hated having no hands. Finally, he got the idea to slide his left hand closer to his right, raise his immobilized right arm, and try again to make the hands connect enough to grab onto the tape that kept the board attached. Jake thumped his aching head back on the pillow.

Mom had left his buzzer on his lap. Should he push it? Oh wait, he didn't have hands, his brain spat. Fuck this, he thought, mashing his armboard on the buzzer. The light next to his bed flipped on as a far too awake voice came over the little speaker, "Yes?"

He floundered. What was he supposed to say? I need help? I'm bored? I hurt? Why did I let my Mom leave? "I...my IV..." he spluttered.

"Just a moment, Jacob." The voice said, and he heard the speaker reset. He flopped his head back, and looked pathetically at his hand. He was still trying to rip the arm board off when a voice interjected, "I wouldn't do that, if I were you."

He looked up to see a portly woman, around Kit's age, standing in the doorway. Her scrub top was covered with dinosaurs. "Oh, I..." His mouth was dry, and he licked his lips, wishing like hell for some water, but too tired to form the words.

She saw this, and moved forward with some water in a pinkish cup with a straw. "Careful when you swallow. They had to bag you when you had trouble breathing for a second. It might hurt."  
"Wha..?" He asked, water falling out of his mouth.

"Doctor will be along to talk to you, Mr. Ely." The nurse said as she got a paper towel and helped him to clean up, "My name's Harper." His mind spluttered, as she asked, "What did you need?"

"I want this armboard gone." He said.

She studied him carefully, "You run the risk of ripping out your IV, you know."

He frowned, and she sighed. "I'll get some scissors."

He watched, his head swimming, as Harper cut away the tape that secured the arm board. His dream had told him to call Harper. Call Harper, the dream woman, Perdita, had said. Was that his subconscious? His eyelids fluttered closed, and Harper said, "Jacob, I need you to stay awake. How's your pain? 1 is no pain, 10 is the worst pain you've ever known."

He slurred, "Maybe...maybe a...five? Hurts, but I could sleep."

She nodded, "That's the meds, Mr. Ely. I'll just get your vitals and get out of your hair."

He woke up six times that night, aching ribs and throbbing shoulder preventing him from getting comfortable. He finally woke for the last time as Harper came in and said, "Jacob, this is Cathy. She'll be doing the day shift with you."

He nodded blearily, and fumbled around for his water cup. The water spilled slightly as his hands shook. "I need... to get up." He said. "Stuff t' do."

"Your girlfriend gave me a message for you if you said that." Harper smiled.

"Who?" He asked, alert. Was he hallucinating again? Harper caught his frenzied stare and steadied the cup and frowned slightly at the black monitor over his bed. His heart rate was 135, even though he couldn't feel a thing, he knew that wasn't a good thing. Jake was too tired and sore to care.  
She replied, "The redhead who wouldn't leave after visiting hours were over."

Oh, God. Sam. "Sam." He grinned, "M'friend. What'd she say?"

"Told me to tell you to stay there or Witch'll get it. What's that mean?" She asked, dropping her professional demeanor for a second.

"Braid my horse with ribbons." He said, closing his eyes as some washed over him like a blanket of needles. "What happened to me?"

Harper spoke slowly as they took his vitals. "You fell through the roof of your barn, about two stories, intake notes say you landed on your back in your horse's stall. You've got a broken shoulder, a few cracked ribs... They were worried about your brain because you got a 5 on a scale they use to test for brain injuries." She noted his worried look, "but once you woke up, Doctor Weitzman said it was less of a concern that she'd anticipated. Still, you're here for at least two days."

He frowned, "Oh."

"As I said, Doctor will be doing rounds in a few hours. Call Cathy if you need anything." With that, she left, and he fumbled about until his gaze fell on the clock. It was a bit before six. He reached to the table, and grabbed the phone. He placed it in his lap as his right arm twinged. He'd call Grandpa later. After he slept.

Jake woke feeling like there was cotton in his mouth. He groaned, hating the unnatural sleep the pain medication forced upon him, leaving him even more exhausted and wrung out. His head felt like a bowling ball, and he was cold. He picked up his cell phone and punched a few buttons awkwardly, wincing as his ribs protested the sudden movement.

It rang six times until there was an answer, "Hello?"

"Grandfather." He began.

"Jacob! How good of you to call. Is there something you need?" Grandfather asked kindly.

Jake looked at the clock. "Sorry. I called during your morning time. Sorry."

"No, I was thinking of you anyway." Grandfather absolved him of any guilt for interrupting his quiet time. "Are you all right, Jacob?"

"Something bad happened." Jake said.  
"I know." Grandfather replied, "Your fall is most unfortunate."

"No. Worse." Jake said.

"Oh. Would you care to discuss it when I come visit today?" Grandfather posed.

"You don't have...to come." Jake lied, even though he was hoping that his Grandfather would come.

"Nonsense." He said, as though making a drive to the hospital was like walking across his living room. "I will bring you books."  
"Can you bring the Jung book, and the dream book?" Jake asked. "And maybe some pen and paper?"  
"I am certainly able to do that." His grandfather prompted him to correct his speech.

Jake flopped his head against his pillow ignoring his shoulder's weak protest thanks to his medication, utterly overjoyed to be back in his own reality. "Would you bring them for me?"

"I would be glad to." Grandfather replied, "See you soon, Jacob."

The call ended just before a young woman pushed a big cart full of trays past his door. She came in a moment later and said, "Ely? Room 245?'

He nodded mutely, as she placed a covered dome of plastic on the bedside table. She did him a favor, it seemed, and pushed the bedside table over his bed, and lifted away the cover. She nodded and left him staring at the worst conglomeration of food he'd ever seen. The smell turned his stomach. Still, he stuck a fork in the eggs of dubious origin and ate about half of the breakfast set before him.

Moments later, he pushed the tray away feebly. The tray had made him sick. He was so hungry, and now he felt like hell for eating it. He was sweating, and felt the jolt of his stomach as he leaned back against the bed to close his eyes against the lights. There was a voice, an indeterminable moment later, "Who gave you this?"

He jumped, even as there was a steadying hand on his arm. He opened his eyes to see a willowy woman standing by his bed, in a white coat and a flowery dress. He replied, "Breakfast cart."

The doctor shook her head, "Oh. I see. Your orders were for toast and tea."

He just looked at her, confused and sick to his stomach. "The morphine you're on, Mr. Ely, is known to cause nausea. Given that you haven't eaten in a considerable amount of time, my concern was that you might experience those symptoms and I..."

She broke off and stepped back as he leaned over the side of the bed and threw up the breakfast all over the floor. He looked up shakily, "I'm so sorry."

She calmly pressed his buzzer twice, and replied, "You don't go into my profession if you're going to get offended over a small amount of vomit. I'm sorry I wasn't attentive enough to get you a basin. It's no trouble."

As Cathy helped him to stand and move over to the vacant bed on the other side of the room, the doctor continued to explain his situation, adding details to his understanding, even as his head swam and he felt disgusting. His shoulder throbbed with a dull fire, and he struggled to keep up as she conducted a brief examination of his mental state and checked the wrapping on his ribs. 

She seemed pleased about his mental state but somewhat concerned about his heart rate and oxygenation, and he relaxed enough to ask her as she left, "Dr. Weitzman?"

She looked up from reading his machines, and said, "Yes?"

He threw it all out there. "Is it common to hallucinate?"

She asked, "All the time, or just during your..."

He cut her off quickly, "Just while I was out..." He backpedaled.

She nodded shrewdly, and tucked a blonde strand of hair behind her wire rimmed glasses. "Well, it's not unheard of, certainly. They say what you see can be important, though medically, it's really just a chemical change, or a lack of oxygen." Dr. Weitzman glanced at his monitor, said, "We need to work on getting your resting heart rate down." and left the room.

Cathy helped him get settled into bed, and he hated that he felt so wobbly. She changed his IV fluids, and he felt the electrolytes in the line as they flooded the port in his hand. The heart rate monitor flickered in front of him as he nodded off, finally getting some sleep that wasn't plagued by vague moments of the dream. He was too tired to think about it right now and prayed to God for some rest.

Jake jerked awake to the quiet sound of his grandfather's boots on the floor. "Grandfather."  
He saw that the man had the grace to look abashed. "I tried to be quiet, Jacob. I am sorry to have woken you."

Jake grinned tiredly, knowing that if his grandfather had really wanted to keep in the dark as to the fact that he was there, Jake would be. "You trained me well, sir."

The old man settled into the seat by the bed. "I am gratified to know that." He asked, "Now, would you care to talk about your concerns?"

Jake raised his IV'd hand to his head and winced as the tape pulled. "I...I had this dream."

Grandfather nodded, and he told everything he could remember, which was honestly most of it, much to Jake's wonderment. Grandfather asked, "Tell me, what do you think it means?"

Jake shook his head, "I...I don't know." He knew what had shaken him the most, even now, "I mean, the part that...Well. Mom."

"Right. Do you think this was a dream, or your future?" Grandfather clarified his question, "How do you intend to analyze this, Jacob? Is it a dream to give you information, or a peek into a future that you may want to work to change?"

Jake spoke quickly, "It was a dream."

"Of course." Grandfather accepted his reply with grace, "Should we discuss some of the themes I saw?"

"What did you see?" Jake began.

"Let's talk about when you tried to call your mother.” Grandfather suggested, “Speaking of dream interpretation, having trouble dialing generally means you're feeling isolated, cut off."

"Right, well, I was." Jake glommed onto an easy explanation.

"It could also be, Jacob, that your subconscious mind was exploring a worst-case scenario. Your worst nightmare, and then needing help and not being able to find it. What do you think your worst nightmare is?'”

"Not being able to do what I do." Jake nodded, knowing that it would kill him to loose his connection with Three Ponies.

"Be serious, son." Mac softly rebuked, "You spent an entire dream doing one thing. What was that, do you think?"

"I was trying to get out...to find Sam." Jake supplied. "And get out."

"To find something, that usually means you have lost it in some way." Grandfather softly offered.

"Grandfather." Jake denied, "That life wasn't my worst nightmare." He looked down at the blanket over his lap and wiggled his toes. 

"Of course not." Grandfather nodded, "You had your dream job, a wife, a child, a home. You were successful, unworried about money."

Jake was confused. Grandfather had always been adamant about two things. One was that his horse was smarter than he was, if he listened carefully. The other... Jake spoke aloud, "You always said life wasn't about money."

"And it is not." Grandfather smiled, "Else, why did the realization of all of your childhood dreams turn into a nightmare?"

"I don't know." Jake shrugged.

"Maybe what you were missing in the dream can be of use to you in discovering that answer." Grandfather continued, "I also note some interesting names. What did you say the girl's name was? Ah, yes. Maya. Do you know what that means, Jacob?"

"Something to do with the Mayans, maybe?" Jake ventured. He didn’t know, but when Grandfather had a question, a wrong answer was better than no answer at all. To not answer meant you were not trying to learn. 

"It is Sanskrit, I believe. When you were a child, there was storybook you liked about Maya the Midshipman, and her name meant illusion. Her captain was called Perdito, derived from the Latin for 'lost.' They sailed for the center of the earth, only to meet sea creatures along the way. Do you not recall the story?"

At this moment, he couldn't recall much of anything. He shook his head, and Grandfather continued, flipping through the index of a large book, "Ah yes. I was right. Hallway" he read, 'You are going through a transitional phase and journeying into the unknown...' It seems to me, Jacob, that the location of your meeting with Samantha was important."

"So I'm worried about her going to school is all." Jake breathed a sigh of relief.

Grandfather looked like he wanted to bash his head against the wall. "May I be frank, Son? Well, it seems to me that your on the precipice of something. It is interesting to me that much of your dream, as it were, is tied to the actual physical conditions that you were experiencing. I simply worry that you're not looking at the broader picture here."

"Huh?" Jake asked.

"Tell me about Maya." Grandfather asked, touching the spine of the book he'd been given in the jungle of Chile, from a comrade he rarely mentioned. Jake thought perhaps Grandfather had picked up much of his dream interpretation skills from that person, or in dealing nightmares that had followed in the aftermath, though Jake knew he didn't know much about those days in MacArthur Ely's life. 

Jake noted he was waiting for him to speak and he did, "She was a great kid. Really smart, mouthy, you know? She looked an awful like Sam, but she was...her own person. I didn't know her, but I...I, I Ioved her, thought she was wonderful."

"It's normal for people to think their children are the most beautiful specimens of humanity to ever be created." Grandfather prompted.

Jake frowned. "Huh?"

Grandfather changed the subject. "Jacob." After a sigh of understanding, he began to discuss complex psychological theories about the mind, and something about representation, and something about how things stand for things and people need to look more deeply. The words blended together like they did when Grandfather told stories or talked about his postgraduate studies. The old man pulled out a deck of cards, "Would you care to place a small wager on the outcome of some hands of gin?"

"Sure." After playing several hands in contemplation, Jake asked, "Grandfather, what's a CharlieCard?"

"I believe they're monthly passes you are able to buy to ride on the Boston T." He thought for a second, "During my years with the Agency, I was in Boston from time to time. I believe you would like the city." Grandfather shuffled his cards.

"So... Sam was saying that she'd come visit me?" Jake asked hopefully.

Grandfather replied after a moment of staring at the cards he shuffled, "If that's how you choose to interpret her response, yes."

After a moment, Cathy returned to check his vitals, interrupting the final hand of gin. She frowned, "I'll need to put a call in, Mr. Ely. Your resting heart rate is still 137."

Jake knew something about heart rates, being that he was a runner. He shared a look with his grandfather as he said, "That's tachycardia."

"Yes." Cathy replied, "Like as not, you'll be going for some testing soon." She left the room, and they heard her call to a fellow nurse that he'd be going for testing.

Half an hour later, Jake found himself walking down a hallway. He'd flat out refused a wheelchair. He could damn well walk. He'd dressed, slowly and awkwardly, in a button down shirt and some jeans. His mother had probably brought them, but he insisted, even as Cathy had waited on the other side of the door as he'd put on his pants. No way was he going out of his room in a hospital gown and a white robe. He'd been too exhausted to brush his teeth, but Jake dragged a comb through his hair and slept for twenty minutes after he was ready but before they came to get him.

Down in the exam room, he laid still as the tech put gel on a wand and quickly rubbed it over his heart. She took images and helped him to clean up, then hooking him up to what seemed like a thousand leads with little stickies on the ends, some placed behind his knees, others under his sternum. It took longer to hook him up and disconnect it than it did for the actual procedure.

Back in his room, Grandfather looked up from the book he was reading. Jake clawed his way back into the uncomfortable hospital bed, and winced as his shoulder jarred and his ribs felt pounded. They spoke for a moment, and Jake nodded off. "I want...to go home." He said.

"Perhaps tomorrow, Jacob." Grandfather tucked his blankets properly, first fluffing them to let air in and then settling them lightly, as he had done for him a million times. "You go on and sleep now."

"Yes'ir." Jake mumbled.

He'd just gotten back from the bathroom when he heard footsteps coming down the hall. He could hear a small voice calling, "Run! I'm running..." He grinned, tired as he was, Cody Forester was about the coolest dude on the planet.

Sam called, "Cody, don't run in the hall, please. Let's look for the numbers on the doors."  
Soon, a small person skidded into his room and paused shyly. "'ello! I be good!"

Sam appeared ten seconds later, in jeans and a dressy top. Her hair was straightened. "Did you stick your finger in a socket?" He asked. He hadn't meant to say it out loud. Morphine, he decided, it was the morphine.

She replied as she entered, picking Cody up as she moved past the doorway and greeted Grandfather who was engrossed in some book with a French title, "What?"

"Just saying." He glanced at the heart monitor. It was rising, and he knew from experience that it would start beeping, or Sam would see it, and she would...Well, he did not want her to see that his heart rate went up at least ten beats per minute just by entering the room with that god awful hair. He couldn't even rock back on his heels and pull his hat down. "Normally, you stick your finger in a socket to make it...opposite. But with you.." She grinned and the number on the machine turned red, obviously reaching its programmed threshold, and he made a split second decision as Cody clambered over to his side. Jake, uncaring, ripped the lead off his chest, and watched, horrified, as the damn thing flatlined. He'd blame it on Cody if they asked. Who would scold a cute three year old?

Cathy and at least two of her compatriots came bursting into the room as Cody moved towards Sam to hide his face in her side. Cathy assessed him, and he spoke quickly, "The lead slipped."  
Another nurse exchanged a look with Mac, who was grinning with the same intensity that most people fell on the floor laughing. Jake turned his gaze on his grandfather as a nurse got another lead sticky, and pulled the old one away. Sam, for her part, turned towards the window to preserve his privacy. The nurse smiled knowingly, and raised the threshold slightly, muting the sound. Relieved, Jake raised an eyebrow at his Grandfather, "Are you laughing at me?"

"No." He softly chortled before he sobered, "Of course not." With that, he went back to his book.

Cody came back over and tried to climb up. "Cody." Jake said, trying to help the toddler up. Sam frowned and attempted to move him away, but Jake frowned.

She sighed, and placed him near Jake on the bed, and Cody looked to Sam. She said, "Cody, why don't you tell Jake what you made him?" She reached into her bag, and passed the child a square of paper. He presented it to Jake with a flourish, saying, "I made! Myself, I made!"

"You made this?" Jake asked, only half feigning awe. In his hand was a blue piece of construction paper. On the front was a squiggle of green and orange, with Sam's carefully written "Get Well" on the front.

Cody insisted, throwing himself over Jake's lap, barely missing his cracked ribs. "Open! Open now!"

Sam interjected, "Open, please." She stressed, "Open now, please."

Cody grinned at him, his three year old smile eating up half of his freckly face. "Please!"

Jake did as he was told, and Cody began to explain the picture inside the card, "See! Me! And you. Sam."

Jake grinned and pointed to something, a squarish blob of black crayon. "Who's that?"

Sam shook her head almost comically, as Cody frowned. "It's my blocks!"

"Oh." Jake smiled.

Cody swiveled to Sam, and begged, "Can I have the iPod, please?"

Sam nodded, and passed a iPod and earbuds to Jake. He looked at her and back at his silver iPod, "You went into my room?"

She nodded, "Got your journal, too. And the book you're reading." She stacked them on the nightstand, "Time goes slow in these places."

"Thanks." He said, running his hand over Cody's head in an affectionate gesture, thinking of the months she'd spent in a place like this. His heart bled for her. How had she done it?

"What's that?" He asked, pointing to the IV line.  
Jake explained, and Cody nodded, lowering his gaze, and clicking around on the iPod. He exclaimed, "Bob! Bob!"

Sam grinned, "Kid's got taste."

He nodded, staring at her, "Yeah. What's with the hair?"

Mac stood, "Cody? I propose you and I take a short jaunt down to the vending machine. What do you say to some crackers?"

Cody thought for a second, looked to Sam, and said, "I get candy!"

Sam laughed, and nodded, "If Mac says it's okay. Go on." She helped Cody down, and watched as they left, Mac explaining, "Don't believe anyone who says candy rots your teeth." He smiled, taking the boy's hand, walking away, "You maybe interested to know, Cody, that the sugar in candy is not the villain that it's made out to be in rotting teeth. Bacterias in your mouth like to feed on sugar and they..."

Sam plopped down in the chair he'd just vacated. Jake raised an eyebrow. She began, "Did you know I saw Rachel Slocum today when I was out with Witch?"

"Oh?" He asked, unsure why he should care if she was in town.

"Uh huh." Sam grinned. "She asked about you and when I told her...Well, she just had to race down here and see you."

"Brat..." He scolded.

"Fine, I really told her that you'd run away to Mexico after..." Sam started and he frowned. She sobered, and said, "I told her that you were okay. Figured you didn't want her around."

"Thanks." He nodded, grateful.

"Yeah." They lapsed in silence until she exclaimed, "Quit bugging me." as if he'd been hounding her.

He smiled.

Sam admitted, "Dad dropped us off while he and Brynna ran to the hardware store or something. I don't know why. They're coming to get Cody, and I'm staying here with you. Jen wanted to do my hair."

"You let her torture you?" Jake asked, knowing what Sam thought of doing her hair.

"Nah. I was going to go to Tikka Tikka." She looked to the floor. "Can you believe it's been ages since we went there?"

Jake wondered if he should put the bug in Wyatt's ear to spend some time with Sam, just her. Growing up, every week there'd been some sort of adventure, as she called them, where they'd go for a ride to see the cattle, or grocery shop, or do something silly, just the two of them. Sam had loved those days, but eventually, they'd stopped. Jake had been baffled then, as he was now. Why would Wyatt turn down time with Sam? Yes, he decided, he'd mention something to Wyatt. Somehow. He asked, "You're giving up Tikka Tikka for me?"

She scoffed, "Before your ego gets even bigger and you think I love you more than Tikka Tikka, relax. Cody has strict orders to bring me takeout."

"You gonna share it with me?" He begged, knowing the answer.

"You'd have fall through a roof first." She said, "Oh. Wait." She laughed at her own joke. After a moment, she mock glared, "I'm still not sharing it with you. Even if you are my best friend."

"We're good, then? Friends?" He asked, sorry for the worry he still saw etched in her face.  
She nodded, a soft smile on her face, not unlike the one in his dream, "Friends."

He happened to glance at the cardiac monitor. It was the lowest it had been since he'd noticed the tachycardia. It dropped another three points when he saw her smile even more vibrantly at Cody's approaching footfalls.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Absolutely insane levels of fluff. You were warned. Please, check your sense of realism at the door and take a seat.

11 Years, 8 Months Later  
March 23rd

Jake Ely woke with a start. He woke feeling as though he were suffocating. There was something over his face. He was pressed into the mattress in a tangle of limbs. He'd been up late last night, concerns keeping him awake, as they sometimes did. His heart was racing. Was that really the alarm clock going off? Why had she messed with the station, again?

He grinned as his heart rate slowed and he sucked in a lungful of oxygen, pushing his wife's hair out of his face. The room was bathed in the fading darkness of the night before dawn from the southern windows. Apple green walls greeted his eyes, and he reached up softly, touching his short hair. There was nothing unusual about all of this for the last decade of his life.

A sleep worn voice caused his gaze to shift to the left, "Today's the day."

"Yeah." He replied, as she moved her curls off of his pillow and turned over, throwing her leg over him. Her green eyes glowed, even as she looked tired. "Today's the day."

"How's it feel?" She asked, making no move to get up.

"Pretty good, Brat." He said, knowing that that was the understatement of the century.

"If you give me a couple of minutes, I could make your day pretty awesome." She placed her lips on the column of his throat.

"I'm sure you-" He grinned, shifting to the left slightly, in a tangle of limbs and sheets and blankets.

He was cut off by premature babbling from across the hall. "Ma! Ma! Up Up Up! Daddy Up! Kitty Up! Katie Up! Annie Up! Kenzie up! All up!"

Sam moaned. He sighed. She bit her lip. "It's your turn."

"Mama!" Kitty called, as though she had been waiting for ages for the day to start, from down the hall, "Mackenzie's up!"

"Daddy!" her twin hollered, "Tell Kitty I'm sleeping!"

Annie, God Bless her, just snored away, ignoring his sisters, knowing they'd normally sleep for another half an hour.

Jake padded across the hall, and scooped up a brown eyed two year old. "Hey, Kenzie. Let's get rolling, huh?"She just stretched up her hands, demanding to be freed from her crib without exerting herself to make her demands verbal. After checking the weather and talking about it, Kenzie yawned. Together, he and the tiny Empress of Deerpath Ranch walked down the hall to find Sam cajoling Katie out of bed.  
Kitty made her bed and talked a mile a minute. "Mama, can we have pancakes for breakfast?" She hopped from foot to foot in a green nightgown, looking so much like her mother at that age, it made him almost wonder if she was going to dig around in her bed for a stuffed horse named Blackie. At seven, she was too cool for that, she said, even though he still checked for monsters under her bed, and fluffed her blankets on demand.

Annie rushed in, nearly knocking him over with her five year old enthusiasm, asking hopefully, "Pancakes?"

Jake watched as Sam stood after rousing Katie, a calm center in the middle of the chaos she'd created, and shook her head as he herded all three of them towards their day clothes and they talked about pancakes. "You're going to have to suffer through oatmeal today, ladies. Your father has to work." Jake grinned. Sam could cook, but she could never manage pancakes, either burning them or making them raw in the middle, or both.

Katie groaned, "Work's no fun..." She stretched comically, wiggling her toes and making happy noises as she went about it.

"Shut up, Katie!" Kitty returned as she pulled a brush through her identically wavy hair.  
Jake spoke, "Use your words, Margaret." He took the brush from her and frowned as Katie stuck her tongue out at her twin.  
After settling that spat, Jake attempted to comb her hair, until Mackenzie's last echoes of sleep faded and she demanded to be put down, and rushed on little feet towards her room, hollering "Annie! nnee! Com' ere! 'ere!" Annie ran after her, half dressed, and screeched, "My Little Pony!" Siger, aged as he was becoming, skittered after Annie, knocking over a Bryer Horse stable in the process.

Sam called after them, "Annie, please go to the potty!"

"I have to go, too!" Katie said, and bolted down the hall, sounding every inch like the the Kathleen she'd one day become.

Such was the start of the morning at the Ely house, Deerpath Ranch, Darton County. His brain ran though the location taxonomy as he used his three minutes of solitude to take a shower after chores that morning. Every horse in the pasture followed Sam around, each hoping to be ridden or wrangle a treat out of the gaggle of girls that followed her or assisted with the chores. The twins were hanging out with their own horses, provided by their doting Papa. Jake wished he'd known decades ago that Wyatt would be even more mushy over the girls than he was over their mother, though why he wasn't sure. He hopped over the bath toys and the no more tears shampoo to find real shampoo. His was gone, so he bummed some of Sam's. His pride had flown out the window ages ago, he knew, as he saw nothing wrong with using rose and lavender shampoo she made herself and playing tea party. Tea party was his favorite game, as long as there was real food. Darrell laughed at him, but Darrell and Ally had a son. He just didn't get it.

Life was great. It had taken a long time to get there, though. He and Sam had continued on being whatever they were up until the end of the first year she'd been at school. She'd shown up on campus, wide eyed and beautiful, and the idiots he'd called friends had swarmed her. She'd been baffled by the attention, not knowing that he'd scared off every idiot in high school with a look and a casual mention of his brothers and his gun collection. Those days had been hell, confusing and tense, even as he'd relished in the joy of being closer to her than ever before.

He hadn't told her about the dream, at least not at that point. He'd gone crazy the second semester, as he was invited with the track team to go to Boston. He'd gone, dreading the whole thing, sweating bullets, like a man ready to face a firing squad, even though Sam had come along as an attaché from the campus paper. He rinsed his hair, recalling the rain that had fallen in Boston.

They'd been walking around the brick and oak campus, as a clap of thunder reverberated above them. Sam had grabbed his hand, and tugged him into the library as buckets of rain came down in torrents. She'd whispered, "Shh!" as he began to chide her for dripping all over the floor. At that moment, he'd seen her, in his personal space. Perdita looked at him, as alive as anyone else in the room. She was wearing a grey jumper dress, black tights, and boots. Her dark, smooth, hair had been loose, and her eyes were as perfectly made up as they had been in his dream.  
He'd bumped into her as they rushed into the library. Her books had gone flying and Sam had bent to help her collect them. Perdita had stood there, confusion on her face as Jake stared, sweat beading on his body, finally venturing, "Hello?" in a soft, cultured voice that haunted his nightmares.

He'd nodded, "Hello." His mind was screaming. He didn't want her, didn't want this, didn't want to wake up years later in a world like his dream. He was in control of his life. He would choose. He had to make his choice known before time ran out. Who knew how things had gone down in the dream? He kept breathing, hoping he'd catch the faint scent of Sam's shampoo, a comforting mix of rose and lavender. If he could, he remembered thinking, he'd know that all hope was not lost. He would make his choice and make it boldly. He'd known he had to do something, but his mind had been spinning. 

Finally, her books were collected, and he grabbed Sam's hand and pulled her out into the rain as she'd cried, "What's with you, you Jerk!" He didn't speak as the came to a covered portico between old brick buildings. He didn't speak as he pressed her against a smooth spot in the wall. He didn't speak, and neither did she, as his head came down and their lips met after years of wondering, years of waiting.

Jake had muttered, awestruck, as they kissed for what seemed like ages, "Sam..." over and over, like a litany, until she'd shut him up by raising up on her toes and pressing her mouth to his more firmly. Their first kiss had tasted like rain and the electricity of the lightning that floated in the air, of the thunder that shook the trees around them. Even today, he'd been known to pull her into the rain.

Moments later, he'd pulled back, and Sam had asked, "What the hell was that?"

"Uh." He'd nearly fainted, mind spinning. "I'm sorry."

She'd pushed him back, away from her, asking waspishly. "For what?"

"Lots of things." He said, and he had been. He was sorry that his dream hadn't really been one after all. Maybe it had just been a coincidence. They happened all the time, he'd asserted. That girl could have been anybody, and anyway, he'd thought then, Sam knew now. Whatever happen next, he could resign himself to his fate knowing he wouldn't spend his life wondering what could have been, if he'd only acted.

"For kissing me?" She'd frowned.

"No." He grinned as her hair started to frizz, "For waiting so long."

There was a soft banging on the door that shook him from the memory. "Daddy!" Annie called, "Mama says you be late for work."

He shut off the water. "Thank you, Annie."

"I go to see my chickens now." She bellowed, as though the water was still running.

"You just saw them, Anna Marie." He said, drying off. "Why don't you go find the letter of the day?"

"Okay! Come on Siger!" She said, demanding the compliance of her canine minion. Moments later, Jake walked into the kitchen past a million stuffed bookcases, and stood silently. He watched as Sam spun around the kitchen, light on her feet as she avoided tripping over Mackenzie and Cougar, whom the young child was petting. The cat accepted the treatment, as he'd been trained by a bevy of toddlers since Cody was born. Poor Cougar had been terrorized by the twins. Heck, Jake had been terrorized by them. He knew that the twin's arrival shortly after Grandfather had announced his retirement from ranching and desire to travel, and handed the ranch over to them, had been their baptism by fire. There they'd been, dealing with their own operation, two fussy daughters who wanted to do everything but sleep, and his hiring by the Darton County Sheriff's Office. He had no idea how Sam had managed. He'd managed with lots of coffee and the occasional beer, but she'd been nursing. She tended to shy away from food like that when pregnant or nursing, or both, tending towards lots of whole foods. While carrying Kitty and Katie, she'd eaten enough strawberries and grapes that he almost wished that he was a fruit farmer in Florida. With Annie, she ate carrots until she nearly turned as orange as her hair in bad lighting. With Mackenzie, she'd split the difference and eaten tomatoes, both raw and cooked. He still blanched at tomato juice.

"Brat?" He asked, as she put breakfast out. "What's the letter of the day?"

"B." She replied, glancing at a giant board on the kitchen, one that served as her command station for school work, as Mackenzie intoned seriously, "Buh buh buh!"

"Yay, Kenzie! B does go buh buh buh!" Sam passed him as she praised the toddler. The cat was never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and bolted for parts unknown, or at least where he'd hidden his ball with the bell in it. Perhaps Cougar had some catnip stashed away. God knew the old fellow needed a vice of some kind, other than the mountains of brand name cat food he ate.

Mackenzie ran on pudgy legs and collected her stuffed bear from his perch in her reading chair, and called to her sisters in the loudest voice she could muster, "Eat! Eat!"

The wooden floors reverberated with pairs of feet as they gathered in the kitchen. During that window of thirty seconds, they discussed the lessons for the day. Sam added, "Kitty could use some work on her fractions."

He nodded, grabbing spoons, knowing that that was code for: "Jake, you go over that for the millionth time, because she's not getting it, and you be the meanie who forces the issue." He'd stop on the way home from work and get a mega bag of M&M's. If he divided them by color, that should work, and then they'd all eat them.

Breakfast was a loud affair, but he was lost in his thoughts. He was lost in the past. After that kiss in Boston, they'd tried to go back to normal. And they had, their friendship was as strong as ever, as normal as ever. Except for the moments they spent breathing the air from each other's lungs, the moments that they'd spent in his tiny dorm room, or the photo darkroom. After a few months of pretending each and every embrace was an aberration, an accident, a one-time-I-swear-this-is-the-last-time thing, they stopped talking about that part of their relationship. Nevertheless, they'd spent so much time fused to the other, that they'd been hard pressed to keep it together once they were home for the summer. They'd never redefined their relationship, but looking back, it was clear that Boston had changed everything. It was as if, after years of not touching, that they couldn't stop. They never went far, but it was far enough.

Quinn had been the one to find them out. Sam had lost her head after yet another week of playing it cool, and had dragged him into the pantry at Three Ponies uncaring that Jen was going to be there any minute. She'd pushed him against the upright freezer, and kissed him until they were breathless. Some time after Sam's hair clip fell out and he'd let her curls wind around his hands, someone came into the kitchen. Jake had jumped, biting Sam's lip.

"Ow!" She'd cried, "You bit me!"

"Sorry." He'd said, making sure his tooth hadn't cut her.

She'd slapped ineffectually at his hand, glaring, "I'm not a horse, you don't need to inspect my gums." He'd rolled his eyes, and bent to kiss her again, hoping the noise he'd heard had been the dog.

Quinn had spoken, then, "If you're finished, can you pass me the Star Crunches?"

Sam had pushed him and bolted from the room. Quinn had laughed at Jake's expression stating he'd known for ages, but the summer had grown increasingly strained. Quinn had blabbed to Nate, who'd told Seth, who told Mom, who told Dad, who told Wyatt, thinking he knew. Wyatt had simply looked at him and said he figured Sam knew what she was up to, but that he would back her up, and life had gone back to normal. Grace had been scarier, truth be told, with her happy assertions that Sam shot down quickly. Nobody, she’d said, was picking out patterns. 

"Daddy!" Katie beseeched, studying the clock, "You have to go!"

Sam grinned as he shook away the dust of his trip down memory lane, knowing where his thoughts were, he supposed, as he gave and received a series of increasingly oatmeal encrusted hugs. "Bye, Brat. Don't drive the girls crazy, huh?"

She frowned at him, wiping up the table where one of the girls had made a mess. "Have fun riding your desk, Detective."

He drove into work, missing the old blue truck he kept in the garage at Three Ponies. There were too many memories in that truck to ever consider selling it. The two seater they had now was more family friendly, even if they had almost outgrown a mini-van. It was the twins that had made him come clean with Sam, even indirectly, about the dream.

They'd been living together for a year, while at school. He'd undertaken a master's degree, simply to buy them time together. Sam was a junior, he was a first year in grad school. They weren't dating, as such, or engaged, but damned if he was leaving her behind. She thought labels were dumb, but Jake liked knowing that Sam was his best friend. She was his best friend, and at the time, he'd been doing what he thought best friends did. He came home to her at night, slept in his own bed, and was warmed each morning by the coffee she pressed into his hands with a smile.  
One morning she'd said, "Jen's pregnant." She and Ryan had gotten married six months before, and Jen was planning on Vet school, a goal she eventually met. At the time, though, he'd been blindsided by the announcement.

"Oh?" He'd said, shoveling in eggs and toast before a seminar.

She'd looked up from her own breakfast, meeting his eyes with an intensity that, in hindsight, should have set him to running. "I want that, too."

He passed her the plate of toast. She shook her head, curls bouncing, "No, idiot. I want a baby."  
"You want a baby?" He asked, "Did you just say...?" He recalled being baffled. Sam had never been one to keep quiet if she thought something was amiss or she wanted something, but it usually was...He'd sat there, staring at her over breakfast, watching as she hooked a bare foot over the rung of a kitchen chair.

"That I'd like to get pregnant." She spoke as if he really were an idiot, "Yes." She spoke, as if to herself, clarifying, "I think it's reasonable. I'm not getting any younger, you know."

"Reasonable?" He almost laughed hysterically, "A new dog might be reasonable. A cat, maybe." Though, really, she did not need another pet. He'd been baffled, "What are you going to do with a baby?"

"Uhm, love it." She'd stated calmly. "What do you think?"

And she loved them, more than anything. But his memory was racing ahead like cars on the interstate. He thought back. They'd gotten married in a church wedding after another ten months of actual dating, or whatever they did that came close to it. Sam refused dinner dates and things, but didn't too much mind working together on spring break at home, or things like letting him buy her an 89 cent iced tea and eating samples at the warehouse store when they did shopping orders. Their strange approach to dating made living together awkward, as Wyatt often showed up at their front door simply because he'd said he was in the area. Jake knew that he checked up on them more in those days than he did now, when he actually was in the area.

But it all came together, somehow. Sam had worn her mother's dress, and Jen had been her Matron of Honor. For a woman who didn’t want to date him, she didn’t mind getting married. In fact, she had been the one to propose. It was surreal, but Jake knew that every choice they made together was the right one for them. To avoid selecting any of his brothers, he'd given Cody the honor of being Best Man, though he knew Quinn and Darrell had done most of the legwork, such as organizing the bachelor party, where they'd played basketball and gotten drunk off their asses.

Sam had crashed that part of the party, and they'd ended up getting so drunk together that his head pounded even thinking about it. Sitting in the hayloft after they'd ditched the others, they drunkenly talked about everything from the absurdity that was the wedding planning to the difference between brands of ketchup, settling on Heinz as a family standard. She'd confessed her childhood crush on him, sheepishly, like he hadn't known, and told him she'd picked their wedding colors in the seventh grade. He'd laughed and begged her never to tell anyone that My Best Friend's Wedding made his heart hurt.

Jake stopped thinking about the wedding, as Guns N' Roses came on the radio. He jammed out, knowing that he was two minutes from work. Parking and getting out, he did a cursory check in the mirror to make sure neither Annie nor Mackenzie had gotten oatmeal on his jacket. Walking to his office, he threw his bag down and checked his inbox and email, waiting for Dwyer to get his city boy self in here. They mostly worked major investigations, which was Darton county's squad for anything but drugs, rapes, or kids. Mostly, they handled rural issues, but were called upon for missing persons/animals, hate crimes, threats, stalking, animal cruelty, pornography, and prostitution/human trafficking. Needless to say, there was never a slow day. Except for today, today seemed to be pretty slow.

As he reviewed case files, Jake's mind couldn't avoid thinking about the fight they'd had on their wedding night. Most couples spent it together, but he'd spent it explaining his dream to his wife, over and over. He couldn't start their marriage without her knowing, even though she'd exclaimed, "You married me because of a nightmare?" And burst into tears. It had, after all, she told him later, been a stressful day, and she hadn't eaten much at the reception. She cried when she was hungry, just like he couldn’t eat when he was stressed. 

He'd hadn't known what to do, until he said, "I'm sorry."

"What?" Her eyelashes had glittered, and he wished he could hold her, so he did, and she repeated herself, "What for, exactly?" Her hair had still been done from the wedding, and she'd been pulling out pins as he'd talked. One hit the floor as her hands shook.

"I'm sorry I didn't believe you, when you were thirteen, and told me your dreams were freaking you out." He said, recalling the time Sue had come to visit and insisted their horses could have an equine slumber party so the would be forced to talk it out. "This one did, Brat. I would have torn the earth apart ounce by ounce in that dream, to make you understand your place in my life." He had sighed, "I spent months afterwards, analyzing everything, even asking Grandfather what the sandwich had meant." He had, too. Somewhere in the attic in a cardboard box, there was a notebook with all of his thoughts in it.

Sam, unable to hide her interest, had asked, "What'd he say?"

Jake put on his Grandfather's Mid-Atlantic English accent, and said, "Jacob, sometimes a sandwich is just a sandwich." He'd never told Grandfather, but that sandwich had saved his marriage before it had even really started.

"You have a sandwich, buddy?" Dwyer interjected, interrupting his thoughts. He must have been muttering aloud. "No time to eat. We have a case."

"Yeah." Jake said, tossing a file towards his partner, "livestock theft south of here." Glad they weren't required to be at roll call, they loaded up in a department truck and headed out. "Some prized, purebred goats."

Dwyer said, "Destruction of property, too." He paused, confused, "Goats have a breed? Like dogs?"

Jake restrained himself from rolling his eyes, knowing that if Katie were here, she'd start lecturing. She was really good with the goats, from daily care to helping Sam with the cheese and lotions. She did a lot of goat exhibition for 4-H. Dwyer should count himself lucky. "Go back to Fresno, Meredith."

The man bristled at being called by his first name, and they spent the morning talking to Mrs. Henkman about her missing does. Riding back to the squad, Jake's personal phone rang. With a look of apology to Dwyer, he saw that it was Sam's phone on the other end. He answered, only to hear the scuffling of the cell phone that came when Mackenzie had it. 

"Kenzie?" He asked.

"Daddy!" She cried, as though he had talked over her,"I talk!"

"Alright, you go on then."

"No talk, Daddy! I talk." She began to tell him some wild story about her stuffed animals. "'ake, I dress. 'ake ate, too, and then rawr!" She growled, and giggled, dropping the phone. "Then books! Mama!" She exclaimed obviously talking to her mother, "I talk to Daddy. No..." She replied sternly to a question, "you not talk to Daddy too. My Daddy..." She stressed.

Sam came on the line, "Sorry. She got the phone while I was in the bathroom. I really have to go now. Combined second grade and Kindergarten science calls..."

He replied, "Don't blow up the kitchen..."

"That was totally Cougar's fault." She quipped.

"Uh huh." He said.

"If you're not going to be nice, I'm going to hang up. Goodbye." The line went dead, but he knew she was happy.

Dwyer asked, "Your kids call you Jake?"

Jake shook his head. He'd tried for Dad, but Katie had said Daddy first, and it had stuck. Now, every time he heard someone say Daddy, he turned his head. "That's her stuffed animals."

"She calls them Jake?" Dwyer laughed.

"Yes, every last one of them." Jake intoned, and Dwyer laughed.

The afternoon was taken up by paperwork, and Jake spent most of it thinking. Today was the day, the day mentioned in his dream. Today was the exact date Maya had mentioned. Reality was nothing like his dream world, and for that he was grateful. When Annie had been on the way, rather soon after the twins, it seemed, Jake had tugged lightly on Sam's braid and told her it was his life's ambition to be adored by many women. And in a way, it was true. He wouldn't trade any of them for a lifetime of the high profile existence he'd had in the dream.

Sam had made most of the sacrifices for their children, he knew, from giving them houseroom in her body, to nursing them without complaining to them or letting them know that it had changed her body in ways that sometimes left her feeling low. Sam used her journalistic talents on freelance basis, homeschooling all of them with as much as enthusiasm as she'd ever had for anything. She'd told him, at two o'clock in the morning, when Katie had a cold, and she was about five months along with Annie, that she was going to stay home with them permanently, and he could go hang if he didn't like it. Within the next week, Sam had turned her attention to starting a non-profit out of the barn's office, turning her passion for saving the wild horses into an advocacy group aimed at teens. In the summer, they came to the ranch to learn about ecology and natural habitats, and then worked on advocacy campaigns based on what they had learned. It was growing, and thriving, and Jake could not have been prouder. He'd always known that the knock-kneed girl who had followed her passions would one day be changing the world.

He was very involved, but he knew that she was in charge with the girls. They were their girls, but she was their mother. There was a bond there that he knew she'd missed out on her herself, and it was one he could never attempt to define. Every day that he saw Sam loving his children, not only because they were the most awesome people on the planet, but because they were his and hers, theirs together, left Jake humbled and more in love with her everyday. It also made him love his mother more, if that were possible. Each day, as they struggled to know if they were doing the right thing with their children, he just wanted to thank his for always being there, even during the hard parts.

As he was walking through the store, his phone buzzed with a text from Sam. It read: "Since you're stopping for candy, get me some oranges. At least five. I need citrus. Also, your horse is a Witch." He paused in the candy aisle, trying to decide what size bag of M&Ms to buy, staring at the text. He settled quickly for the larger bag. How did she know he was stopping for M&Ms? Was he that predictable? Was she that predictable?  
He quickly sent back a text that read: "? ? ? ? ?" and bagged half a dozen oranges. The six wouldn’t even last a night, until everybody had some. Either they needed to put in a greenhouse or start buying fruit in bulk. There was no reply to his text. She was probably busy, but his own mind was whirling. Grapes, strawberries, carrots, tomatoes... Did oranges come next? He chided himself. It was entirely possible she just wanted an orange. An orange did not mean she was pregnant. But...other things might, and knowing them, other things usually did. He walked towards the check out, glad to be out of there quickly.

On the way home, his father called, and they spoke for nearly the whole drive back about things on the ranches. Now that all three outfits were run by family, Sam, Wyatt, and Dad, there was a lot of coordination and cooperation that made things simpler. After the time he'd fallen through the roof, they'd had to work together to help while he recovered. 

His heart had been fine. They still tested it from time to time, but they'd assumed since then that it had been a reaction to the medications. Jake knew exactly what it had been. His body had been recovering from the terror that was his nightmare. He'd spent months thinking about it, asking people what had happened, and had come up with a timeline.

The moment he'd woken up in his dream had been the moment of impact. The times that scenes had faded, for lack of a better word, were longer in reality. Every time someone had said "Mama..." He'd been calling for his own mother. When someone asked him the date, his father, he thought, Maya had been questioned. The unbearable pressure in his arm was when his shoulder had been reset at the hospital. The buzzing and the light pen had been a doctor checking for responses and the monitors. Later, his mother had told him he'd called out for Witch, and Sam.

He'd been scared years ago, when he'd realized with sudden clarity that the moment he'd touched her in his dream had been the moment she'd appeared by his bedside, rushing when Seth called her, and taken his hand. When he'd said "No..." and begged her not to leave him in his dream, he had stopped breathing, and Sam was forced aside by the nurses. Later, she'd been whispering, begging him to come back to her, begging him to understand that she loved him, though she hadn't admitted that until nearly a decade later. It was always known to him that his mother's prayers had brought him back fully.

Jake parked the truck, somewhat surprised that a horde of girls wasn't swarming it by now. Walking slowly up the steps, he heard "Dancing with Myself" and saw Kenzie dancing with Katie, and Annie with Kitty. They were dancing around, being silly. Jake got it. When the girls got angry and frustrated with one another, sometimes Sam would pick a song and start dancing. Eventually, the girls would join in and three minutes later, they'd be happy with each other and would go back to their previous task. He joined in, setting the grocery bags on the counter, whispering in Sam's ear as Billy Idol sang, "Do we need to talk?'

She watched the girls spinning and giggling, "Make sure you ask about Annie's art project. Fractions were terrible, by the way."

"Brat..." He sighed. She wasn’t talking, which meant she had something to say. He tried not to get his hopes up one way or the other. 

She never replied, as the song ended and they sat down to dinner. He dogged her steps, but she wasn't talking. Not that she could, anyway, with the girls in the room. A moment later, there were boots coming up the steps. Cody's windblown self appeared in the room seconds after his voice called out hopefully, "Did I miss dinner?"

Jake shook his head. The kid was around daily, mostly after school, eating him out of house and home, helping on the ranch. Cody really was an awesome kid. Sam grinned, "No, go on and get yourself a plate, baby."

Cody flushed. He was nearly 16, as he liked to say, and still being called baby by his big sister. Jake knew that in many ways, Sam and Cody's relationship was very maternal. She treated him very much like she did the girls rather than how she treated his brothers. Cody, she had once said, was very much like who she'd thought a son of theirs might be, bright and hardworking.  
Cody sat down, and they began to eat, the girls talking a mile a minute about school and pestering Cody, who bore it with grace. He was pestered equally by his sister, who used every bit of her journalistic skill to get him to talk about school and his goings on. Randomly, if there was a lull, Sam would throw out a question, or Jake would, mainly for the twins, but sometimes for the others. Verb declensions, questions about their lessons, were tossed around the table, often in a silly way. 

After the twins and Annie ran off, simply because Cody needed their attention, Sam held Mackenzie on her lap. Cody said, "I need advice."

Jake nodded. He thought he knew what was coming. Cody began, "I...want to take Lissy to a concert."

Sam asked, "And..?"

"Will you smooth it over with Dad?" He began, "Connor is driving, and he's taking Hillary..."

Jake could have died as Sam blurted, "Is this a date?" Cody blushed, and Sam grinned, "Cody! Do you need a ride? I can totally drive you guys." She smiled wider as Mackenzie babbled about her dinner, and scrambled down from her mother's lap.  
The toddler ran off, calling, "Jake! I get Jake!" Being that her attention was elsewhere, Sam missed Cody's look of desperation he directed at Jake.

Jake said, as gently as possible, "He's got a ride."

"Yeah, but..." Sam began, as she stacked plates. Jake handed her the silverware, after he stuck his hand in a pile of food that Annie had somehow knocked off her plate. 

"Brat. He doesn't want somebody who changed his diapers around while he's..."

"You're vile." She said, without malice, but admitted to the truth behind his words, "I guess. It's alright, baby. I get it." Though she seemed sad about it, she smiled, saying, "I'll do what I can to smooth it over with Dad." Cody breathed a sigh of joy. Sam continued, her reporter's glint coming to her eye, "But we really should talk first. What kind of concert is it?"

"Uh, Indie Dance Pop. Sort of. It's..." Cody trailed off.

"Hip." Sam nodded, "Right. Well. I know how those things go. One time, in Vegas... Well, anyway, there was this concert, and we went...There was this...and uh, after..." Sam trailed off.

"Sam. Your point?" Cody asked, having no way of knowing that Sam was talking about a Western Underground concert they'd gone to while at school. Sam had gotten a beer spilled on her, and Jake forever associated the scent of cheap beer and LeDouxian music with the frenzied rush of emotion that had followed after.

Jake saved her brother from a permanent blush. "We'll help you out with Wyatt. But on two conditions. One is that you behave as a gentleman. The other is that you behave rationally."

Cody stammered, "Right. Course." He looked taken aback, soft spoken and shy as he was around girls. "What were you trying to say, Sam?"

She smiled, and put on an accent, "Hey, look, I’m a cool mom, okay? I’m not like a regular mom.” Cody just looked confused at the reference, which made Sam glare, and open her mouth, only to be cut off.

Sam was cut off by a crash and a bellow, "Mama! Mama!"

Another voice joined Katie's "Come 'ere! Mama!"

Sam rose quickly, knowing that Jake was occupied with Mackenize. She probably hoped he would get more information out of Cody while she was upstairs, but her brother was too interested in listening to Mackenzie. She bounded up the stairs, "Who pulled over the small bookcase?"

"I wanted my Pony book, Mama..." He heard Annie reply.

Sam obviously handled it, and the girls trooped down after her. She nodded at Jake, "You need to bolt that shelf in Annie's room to the wall." She looked to Cody, "Look after them, please?"

Cody nodded, "Do they need to do anything?"

"Uh, not perish in the next hour..." Sam said, smoothing Annie's soft brown hair.

Cody nodded, "Right."

Sam informed the girls, "Your father and I have to go check on some things. Cody is going to stay with you and do a read aloud." She passed Mackenzie over to her brother, asking, "Whose turn is it to pick?"

Annie said, "Kitty's today."

Kitty said, "Can we do the next chapter of Homer Price?"

Sam nodded, "That's great!" and herded the girls into the living room. Jake smiled, as Katie wrapped her arms about his waist.

It still amazed him that he and Sam, two of the most reticent, closed off people he knew, had raised such vibrant and affectionate daughters, who were as kind and intuitive as they were outspoken and stubborn. Sam was still such a brat, and had gotten exactly what she wanted with tonight's read aloud. Katie whispered, "Can I come, Daddy?"

He shook his head. "Tell you what, though. Tomorrow." He tucked a wave behind her ear, as it had been stuck in her glasses frames. "We'll do something."

She grinned, so much like her mother, "Can I help you look at the well pump?"

He'd been thinking of letting her and Kitty help with their latest case, a horse owned by a high profile politician that needed some TLC after a bomb scare at a rally. He'd let her decide tomorrow.  
With a nod, he followed Sam out to the barn after collecting Witch, watching in silence as she tacked up Tempest, obviously having exercised Ace earlier in the day when the girls were out with her. He almost hated having to work, leaving her to manage the day to day logistics of the ranch, even as he loved his job. She did a better job with the ranch than he could. 

He watched as she glittered, so alive in the moment. Sam turned her head after Tempest alerted her to his presence, and she met his eyes. All he could think in that second was "Oranges."  
Sam snorted, a small laugh, "Huh?"

He'd spoken aloud. "Brat." He pulled his hat down, "You know exactly what I'm asking you."  
"Uh huh." She nodded he began to tack up. "How are you feeling?"

God, she expected him to talk about his feelings. "About what?"

She spoke as they rode out in the evening sunlight, heading out to check on the cattle and check their water. "Today being the day."

He paused, thinking, as she opened a gate, they went through, and he closed it. "I'm glad I didn't wake up in an alternate universe."

She said, "Sort of felt like we did. Kenzie woke everyone so early."

He thought, "Maybe we should delay her bedtime if she needs less sleep or something."

Sam spoke as they rode along, looking towards the horizon. "Probably the change in the time of year."

"Maybe." He paused, knowing how exciting the weeks in early spring, before the cattle drive, could be. "Sam?"

"Huh?" She asked.

He had no clue what to say. No way of knowing how to express all of the emotions he was feeling, ones that had built up as this day approached, only to find that it was a somewhat more sedate than normal Tuesday in the Forester-Ely house. Sam wasn't working a story for once, hadn't run with the wild horses in at least a week or two. He'd had a dull day at work, which had left him lots of time to think.

He didn't know if his dream had been a dream or a peek into an alternate path he might have taken. He never found out if that girl had been Perdita, nor had he seen her since. From time to time he wondered what it all had meant, but sometime over the last few years, he'd realized that it didn't matter, because he was where he was supposed to be. He was who he was always supposed to be.

He tried to speak, "You know I..." He trailed off. He wanted to say a million things. You know I love you, love them, wouldn't trade all of this for anything. I'm not the person I was at five, at twenty-five. That Jake Ely didn't know what he had but I...

Sam replied, "I know." She grinned, "Guess what else I know?"

Witch's ears niggled as he tensed slightly, "What?"

"Oranges." She smiled.

"When?" He asked, summarizing all of the questions he had, all of the thoughts rushing through him. He'd figured out that Kenzie was coming before Sam had admitted it to herself, buying an EPT and a can of V8 at the same time, pressing into her hands as she told him there was no way.  
With Annie, they'd figured it out together, sitting on the couch, folding the piles of laundry they thought were huge then. The twins had been a surprise to him, even though they'd been planned by their mother, over eggs and toast, at least two years before their existence, even on a cellular level.

She replied softly, "Around my mother's birthday..."

"She's going to be Louise, then?" Jake asked, knowing that there was a reason they'd waited to use the name. It had never felt right, Sam had said. She didn't want her girls to be considered a copy, a replacement, for anybody.

She nodded, even as he statement was negative, "This one's a boy."

He asked as they neared their destination, "How do you figure?"

She replied, "I'm hardly sick at all. And we have four girls. Five would just..."

Five would just be perfect. In fact, five was perfect. In two minutes, their world had shifted again. It had grown, expanded, in some way. Of course there were risks, this early, though he did not voice his concerns about her health or ask about doctor's appointments. Rather, he sent a up a prayer that this baby would be a girl, because really, the gender neutral baby stuff Sam had collected over the years had slowly morphed into an explosion of pepto-bismal pink, most through gifts from people, who did not get that Sam was serious when she'd gone for a gender neutral palate of cream and mint green. Naturally, they said, pink was the perfect complement to her choices. Sam wasn’t fond of pink, but Annie liked it, and so there was more pink now than ever before. 

And really, his mind added, a boy named Louise was worse than a boy named Sue. Thank God they homeschooled, or else poor Lou would get his teeth kicked in on the playground. 

Although...with lots of big sisters to watch his back... No, he amended, this baby was a girl. Unless, a thought hit him, it was twins. Again.

As Sam dismounted and he followed, he wrapped his arms about her in the middle of a huge pasture filled with bovine onlookers.Yes, today had been the day, and it was better than any dream his brain could have cooked up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, that *was* a Mean Girls reference. 
> 
>  
> 
> Well, this is the first of my fics to be transferred here. There is officially nowhere for this fandom to go but up.


End file.
